Hello folks and welcome to the future!
This first effort will be very beta as I get a handle on the new technology I am harnessing for this. Lots of options and bells and whistles, most of which I am comfortable dispensing with, on the basis that most of you have survived 45 weeks so far without them. But if I get a sense of anything being useful and “enhancing of the experience,” as they say in marketing circles, we may give it a go.
The application of new technology has extended to the show, with the implementation of Riverside as a recording and editing platform. With it, I can turn around a show much faster, as well as generate “smart” video, both of the conversations and as shorts for promoting the podcast on other platforms. Haven’t had time to really see everything it can do, but you will be seeing more of it as time goes on. It’s not really directed at you, my much-appreciated existing audience, so much as others who have not yet been exposed to the SATB experience and whose live will benefit utterly from it, as have yours…
Not for no reason does the term “AI” tend to trigger some people, especially creatives whose livelihoods depend on what they create. But there does seem to be a place for it to enhance and support the work of creatives, if used with that intent (and not by others who would profit by substituting AI content for the work that only humans can do well). Stuff like this for instance has no place in this podcast, but smartly excised excerpts are a good way to draw in listeners while keeping my time and energies where they belong: securing the guests and producing the content.
Anyway, that’s it for the procedural stuff. This wouldn’t be a SATB newsletter without an obituary, and for this week it’s Bobby Hart. He’s best known, of course, for being the surviving half of the Boyce and Hart songwriting and recording artist duo. B&H scored a top ten hit in 1968 with “I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight” (not the Barry and the Tamerlanes one…) and issued three albums in the 60s, each of which have something to recommend them. (Check this out - they completely evoke the era for anyone who enjoys such things)
But they are most famous for the material they contributed to The Monkees’ TV project. Being under contract to Screen Gems put them on the right place at the right time with the right material to populate the product needed to launch Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider’s TV riff on A Hard Day’s Night/Help!, and the B&H delivered to order a fine mix of rockers and ballads to fulfill the brief: “(Theme From) The Monkees” - “Last Train To Clarksville” - “I Wanna Be Free” - “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” (this latter one had already been recorded by Paul Revere and The Raiders but the Monkees made it their own) - “Valleri,” to name just the best known ones. The arrangement worked out just fine for all involved (Hart at least expressed some doubt whether or not the Monkees actually LIKED them, until reassured by Davy Jones publicly crediting them during a live show), but they were eventually edged out, first by musical director Don Kirshner (who claimed that they were taking advantage of the situation by using studio time on The Monkees’ dime to record material for their own project) and later by The Monkees themselves (after ditching Kirshner and asserting autonomy by choosing their own material).
But the exile didn’t last long: needing more tunes than they could produce themselves, Boyce and Hart material ended up on EVERY Monkees album issued in the sixties, except for Head (which contained only six new songs, augmented by soundtrack audio): these included “I’ll Spend My Life With You” - “Words” - “P.O. Box 9847” - “Tear Drop City” - the frankly awful “Ladies Aid Society” - “I Never Thought It Peculiar.” (Granted, some of these latter day songs had been recorded back at the start of the project and were used as filler.)
But The Monkees connection did not end with the series’ demise and their break-up in 1970. By 1976, the idea of a pseudo-reunion of two Monkees plus Boyce and Hart led to the formation of Dolenz, Jones, Boyce and Hart. (“...and Hart” seemed to be a feature of everything Bobby did). “They guys who wrote ‘em and the guys who sang ‘em,” the foursome was billed as, playing the carnival circuit and parlaying the act into TV appearances and an album of new material (plus a Japanese issued live album). Here’s an interview here from American Bandstand.
Bobby Hart (born “Harshman,” an eminently unsuitable handle for a guy producing pop for a living) first teamed with Tommy Boyce in the early sixties. Their best-known pre-Monkees success was “Come A Little Bit Closer,” as recorded by Jay and The Americans. Without Boyce, Hart co-wrote “Hurt So Bad” for Little Anthony and The Imperials, so they were doing okay even without The Monkees. Also independent of the group, their profile was raised with appearances on some Screen Gems sitcoms of the era: The Flying Nun- I Dream of Jeanie - Bewitched (see this clip for a mashup).
Following health and depression issues, Tommy Boyce took his own life (at 55) in 1994. Bobby lived long enough to pen a memoir, Psychedelic Bubblegum, before succumbing to his own health issues at 86. Here’s an interview from a few years ago, looking back.
Back to Beatle world: Ringo’s All Starr tour for 2025 resumed in my town of Chicago this week, en route to a six-show residency in Las Vegas at The Venetian later this month. Two All Starrs, Men At Work’s Colin Hay and Toto’s Steve Lukather, both veterans of previous Ringo tours, were together on the road this summer after the initial All Starr dates in June finished, as part of a package with Christopher Cross. (To anyone questioning whether or not these guys could deliver a show worth anyone’s time, to this witness, it was an evening well spent. Plus, if it’s good enough for Weezer…)
A couple of new product announcements: in a year where we have had a new studio album from Ringo, plus archival material from The Beatles and John and Yoko announced, who does that leave? Paul and George of course, and this past week they represented. An October 24 release date was announced for digi-pak CD issues of George’s six Dark Horse studio albums (Thirty-Three & 1/3rd - George Harrison - Somewhere in England - Gone Troppo - Cloud Nine - Brainwashed). It does not appear that there are any compelling bonuses involved.
Bigger news was the Wings package, titled Wings. You can read all the specifics of the release here, but if the first thing you’re wondering is: hold up - I already own Wingspan, All The Best, Pure McCartney, plus an original pressing of Wings Greatest - what do I need this for? Well, the answer is - maybe it’s not intended for you who own it all, but for anyone new to the discussion who doesn’t know where to begin. Unlike previous comps (including Wings Greatest), it is all Wings material - no McCartney-branded material. So there’s that. It’s being presented as “the ultimate anthology” - that terminology in Beatles world would suggest, you know - rarities: live takes, outtakes, demos, alternates, etc, but this is not that - it’s a straight up greatest hits, augmented with album tracks.
Furthermore, and I do not want to be that guy, but - there are the requisite omissions: the two most controversial singles issued by Wings (their first two, in fact) are not here: no “Give Ireland Back To The Irish” or “Mary Had A Little Lamb.” Now while rather low down on the offensiveness scale, they are historic - and for a release tied to a documentary and book project purporting to tell the story of this band, it makes little sense to ignore them. One can quibble over the remaining choices - what rare B-sides, for example, are absent - but a bigger issue rankling some fans is: where are the special deluxe editions of London Town or Back To The Egg? MPL seems to have lost interest in the series somewhere along the way, really annoying aging fans who had hoped to see the expanded editions while their hearing is still more or less serviceable. That’s a question we would love to have resolved sometime soon.
History for this week: September 11 is commemorated throughout the globe for the horrific terrorist attacks occurring on that day in 2001. Typically, some Beatles fan will post that screen grab of John and Yoko on the Staten Island ferry taken in September 1971, depicting the under-construction Twin Towers on the shore. That image, along with a lot of other film taken around that time and climaxing with the much-discussed-of-late 1972 One To One concerts, all show John with the green US army shirt; close inspection shows the name “Reinhardt” on it. You may well be wondering: what’s the story with it?
It was originally issued to Sgt. Peter James Reinhardt. Who was he, you are asking? Born Duncan Peter James Woodin in 1943, the name “Reinhardt” came from his step-father. It was emblazoned on his Second Infantry shirt worn by (and photographed extensively on) John Lennon circa 1971-1972.
John’s acquisition of a piece of American militaria has a backstory, of course, and the website feelnumb.com tracked it down some years ago. (Their original post seems to have been deleted.) Here it is: on June 4, 1969, on his way back to London after the Montreal Bed-In (where - fittingly - “Give Peace A Chance” had just been recorded), John’s plane had a stopover in Frankfurt, West Germany. Peter at this time was out of the army, having taken a job with Delta Airlines (which of course offered free employee travel). His military career had included a hitch in Vietnam, followed by time in the South Korea DMZ, hence the patch “Imjin Scout Regiment DMZ.”
But fate placed the two on a collision course in Frankfurt, where as it happened, John was sporting an army surplus raincoat. It was enough for Peter to strike up a conversation with him: telling John that it was “crap,” he offered to send him some of his old kit. John offered to send Peter a jacket in return (which he never did), and this was how the clothing passed into his hands. It first turned up in photos in late 1969 during John’s stay at Ronnie Hawkins’ farm.
One Reinhardt shirt was immortalized on the 45 picture sleeve for the “Power To The People” single in March 1971. John wore it on the Dick Cavett Show on September 11, 1971 (also seen by millions in Forrest Gump, to cover all bases.) It is not known if John wore it much after the One to One shows, but it did stay in his possession. In the years after John’s death, this piece of historic ephemera turned up in museum exhibitions chronicling his life.
As for Sgt. Reinhardt, he passed away at 63 in 2007 from liver disease. I could find no pictures of him wearing the shirt online.
I will be taping a new episode of the Classic Album Olympics podcast with Gary Wenstrup this week (The Byrds, this time). I believe the Steely Dan discussion went up this week. I will also be taping an episode of the Follow Your Dream podcast, hosted by Robert Miller. (I know at least three SATB favorites have appeared on it.)
310 came out this weekend: The Beatles’ Legacy with Sean Murphy. In case anyone missed these links, here they are again…
MY talk on HIS show here:
https://murphlaw.substack.com/p/season-4-ep-6-robert-rodriguez-the
Substack = seanmurphy.live / https://murphlaw.substack.com
Sean's online Beatle writings:
https://www.bullmurph.com/fifty-years-ago-today-celebrating-sgt-pepper/
https://www.bullmurph.com/for-you-blue-the-beatles-blue-album-41-years-later/
That’s a wrap for now - enjoy the rest of your week!
All best,
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